Now, let’s discuss the specific attitude that the soul adopts towards its embodiment in a personality. This takes us away from the matter aspect of life and towards the consciousness aspect.
For the latent qualities of the soul to evolve through external influences, the soul must descend to a level where it can be affected by these influences. Reincarnation is the method through which the soul achieves this, as it involves the soul projecting part of itself into lower planes to gain experiences and then withdrawing while carrying the results of these experiences.
It’s important to note that the soul doesn’t physically move through space. Instead, it attempts to focus its consciousness at a lower level to express itself through denser forms of matter.
The soul’s projection into incarnation is often likened to an investment. Ideally, the soul expects to not only reclaim the entire capital invested but also gain additional interest, which it usually does. However, just like any investment, there is a risk of loss instead of gain. Some parts of the soul’s projection may become so entangled with lower matter that they cannot be fully reclaimed. We’ll explore this “investment” aspect of reincarnation in detail in a subsequent presentation.
The student will have fully realised that at each stage of the soul’s descent into incarnation, there is a submission to limitation. As a result, no expression of the soul on any of the lower planes can ever be perfect. It is simply an indication of its qualities, much like a picture represents a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface. In the same way, the true quality of the soul cannot be fully expressed in lower matter. The vibrations of lower matter are too dull and sluggish to represent it, much like a string that is not taut enough to respond to a note from above. However, it can be tuned to correspond with it in a lower octave, like a person’s voice singing in unison with a child’s, expressing the same sound as much as the capabilities of the inferior organism permit.
It is not possible to express exactly in physical language the descent of the soul. Still, the best impression we can have of it is perhaps the idea of the soul extending part of itself, like a tongue of fire, into planes of matter that are grosser than its own.
The soul, belonging as it does to a higher plane, is a much grander thing than any manifestation of it can be. Its relation to its personalities is like one dimension to another, such as a square to a line or a cube to a square. No matter how many manifestations exist on any lower plane, they can never fully encompass the richness of the soul. Even if the soul could take on a thousand personalities, it still wouldn’t be sufficient to express all that it is. The best it can hope for is that the personality will accurately represent the soul’s intentions and express as much of the soul as possible in this lower world.
The soul may have only one physical form, but it can inhabit multiple thought forms created by loved ones. The soul welcomes these opportunities to manifest itself and develop new qualities. Similar to how a person can be aware of multiple physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts simultaneously without confusion, the soul can be active through its personality and multiple thought forms simultaneously.
The wise person recognises that the true essence of a person is their soul, not their personality or physical body. The person understands that the most important thing is the life of the soul and that everything related to the physical body should be subordinate to these higher interests. It understands that this life on earth is given for the purpose of progress and that progress is the most important thing. The real purpose of life is the development of one’s soul and character. It understands that this development is in its own hands, and the sooner it is perfected, the happier and more useful it will be. Furthermore, one soon learns through experience that nothing can truly be good for oneself or anyone if it is not good for everyone. Over time, one learns to forget oneself entirely and to prioritise what will be best for humanity as a whole.
The purpose of the entire process of descending into matter is to develop the soul. The soul takes on layers of matter precisely because through them, it can receive vibrations to which it can respond, allowing its latent faculties to unfold. The entire purpose of the soul’s descent is to become more defined so that all of its vaguely beautiful feelings may crystallise into a definite resolution to act. Its incarnations form a process through which it gains precision and definition.
Therefore, specialisation is a way for the individual to progress. The individual reincarnates into different races or sub-races to acquire the specific qualities that each sub-race strives for perfection. The soul fragment that is incarnated is highly specialised. As a particular quality is developed, the soul integrates it within itself over time, repeating this process multiple times. When the personality is withdrawn into the soul, it spreads some of its particular achievements over the whole, making the soul more defined.
In “The Key to Theosophy,” H.P. Blavatsky vividly describes the objective of reincarnation. She explains that a celestial being, not yet pure enough to be one with the ALL, must purify its nature by spiritually and physically experiencing every aspect of the universe. This purification process involves passing through experiences in lower kingdoms, ascending to higher planes, and eventually experiencing all facets of human life. This celestial being, referred to as “Manasaputra” or “the Sons of (universal) Mind,” is essentially thought and is considered the real human Soul by Theosophists. These Souls, distinct spiritual entities, inhabit human bodies known as Manasa or minds. Be cautious; this Theosophical viewpoint is separating mind from matter. We will talk about the mind and consciousness, but never forget this aspect of the Trinity always has to be rooted in matter. It never exists by itself, anywhere.
The term Manasaputra, meaning “Sons of Mind,” is used in a specific way in the quote just mentioned. It is a broad term encompassing various levels of intelligence, ranging from the “Sons of Flame” themselves to the entities that individualised on the Moon Chain and had their initial fully human incarnation in the Earth Chain.
Many similes and metaphors have been employed to illustrate the relation between the soul and its various personalities or incarnations. One common comparison is to liken each incarnation to a day at school. In the morning of each new life, the soul resumes its lessons from where it left off the night before. The time it takes for the soul to progress is entirely up to its discretion and energy. A wise soul understands that life is a preparation for a broader and more glorious future. It intelligently collaborates with its teachers and strives to do the maximum possible work to quickly progress and enter its kingdom as a glorified soul.
The soul’s descent into the physical world can be likened to a bird diving into the sea to catch a fish. Just as leaves on a tree draw in material from the outside, transform it into useful substances, and send it into the tree as sap, personalities gather experiences from the world and then let go of them when their time is done. Like a diver searching for a pearl in the ocean, the soul plunges into the depths of life to seek the pearl of experience, but it does not stay there for long as it is not its natural element. The soul rises into its atmosphere, shedding the heavier elements it leaves behind. In this sense, the soul that has departed from the earth has returned to its place, as its true home is in the “land of the Gods,” on earth, it is an exile and a prisoner.
The soul can be seen as a labourer who works in a field, enduring rain and sunshine, cold and heat, and returning home at night. However, the labourer is also the owner, and all the fruits of their labour fill their granaries and enrich their stores. Each personality is the immediately effective part of the overall individuality, representing it in the lower world. There is no injustice in the fate that befalls the personality because the soul sowed the karma in the past, and the soul must reap it. The labourer who sowed the seed must harvest it, even if the clothes they wore as they sowed have worn out between sowing and reaping. The one who reaps is the same as the one who sows, and if they sow little seed or seed of poor quality, they will find a merger harvest when they return to the field as the reaper.
The soul has been described as moving in eternity like a pendulum between periods of terrestrial life and posthumous life. The hours of the posthumous life, for one who truly understands, are the only reality. Therefore, the soul often effectively begins its personal life cycle upon entering the heaven-world and pays minimal attention to the personality during the period of gathering materials. This may sound remiss on the part of the soul, considering the mess the personality can get itself into. When interacting with people who have dementia, one often gets the feeling that the soul has turned its attention somewhere else and the person you are interacting with is on auto-pilot.
Let’s finish our look at the relationship between the soul and its various personas in the following presentation.